PUT ON A SONG THAT MOVES YOU: Music and movement at Recess by Bevin Prince
- Kate Barber
- Jun 9
- 8 min read
At Recess by Bevin Prince, the mission is simple: their aim is “bring back play” in a way that elevates and uplifts a community. Offering 45 minute, high-intensity workouts focused on wellness, positivity, community, and fun, it’s a place that makes this promise: you’ll never be picked last at Recess. What sets the studio apart isn’t just their commitment to community over competition—it’s also the music they ride to and how instructors use music and movement to create transcendent experiences.
Bevin Prince first opened the studio during the pandemic with a few bikes and an outdoor tent. Spin class was a method of exercise that allowed her to be herself, where nothing mattered but being present. “When I feel challenged,” Bevin says, “sometimes my instinct is to quit. That wasn’t serving me anymore. I needed to feel safe enough to make small choices. In spin class, the worst thing that happens is maybe you have to turn your resistance down a little bit. I get to ask myself: what if I don’t quit? That changed my entire life. On a bike is where I entered into a better version of myself. I wanted to provide others the same opportunity.”
For Bevin, it was bigger than just the power of cardio and strength. In a world of Instagram culture, she points out, we all work so hard to paint pictures that aren’t fully human. Where can we go where we can just see each other as humans—not as different sizes or ethnicities or political affiliations? Where can we go and recognize that everyone feels pain and shame and joy? “When we can look at each other as humans,” Bevin says, “the world becomes softer. And that’s what the world needs.”
Bevin decided that was what Wilmington needed, too. As she watched Wilmington grow, she wondered how she could add positivity and light to the community. She wanted to create her own version of utopia, where there were no labels, where everyone truly felt welcome. The place where she feels safest is a dark room with bikes and music—a place without judgment where she can work through what’s in her head using music and movement to guide her thoughts.
Her method worked, and the studio quickly outgrew the outdoor tent space. Now, you can find them indoors at a studio in Mayfaire. If you take your first ride, here’s what you’ll hear at the beginning of class: “We ride to the beat. Feel the music. Do what feels good for you. Everything is a suggestion.” While each instructor offers choreography and challenges to increase and decrease resistance, riders are encouraged to make their own choices, sit when they need to, and not feel pressured to follow precisely. There are only two rules: listen to your body, and when Beyonce changes keys, change your resistance to make it feel different.
While metrics can be valuable in terms of measuring progress, Bevin tells me, what’s most important is being present in this moment without comparison to what you did the day before or what you want to do the next day. At Recess, the music guides the class, and choices are made based on feelings. The goal? Forty-five minutes of being in touch with yourself, of being fully present, without phones or distractions. “It’s a meditation,” Bevin explains, “and music is the portal. It’s the universal language that transcends generations and reminds us we all have the same human experiences. Music is how we lead people to get out of their heads, drop into their bodies, and feel.”
Each class starts with a warmup song, selected to make you feel safe and ease into the rhythm. Then, the focus is heart rate: climbs, sprints, resistance, and recovery. After an arms set, the stage lights and candles go out, and the room falls dark. This song plays without choreography or commentary from the instructor, providing riders space to feel the music and open themselves up. Classes end on a high-energy song “to remind you how incredible you are and send you out with less on your shoulders, standing a little taller,” explains Bevin.
photos by Erin Taylor
One of lead instructor Carolyn Royce’s repeated refrains is that “it should be joyful or not at all.” Many of Carolyn’s class philosophies translate to life outside the studio. She reminds her classes that if you aren’t having fun, you should make different choices. “When in doubt,” she says, “whether inside or outside of the studio, all you have to do is put on a song that moves you, turn the resistance up, and keep going.”
When she’s training new instructors, Carolyn encourages them to cast wide musical nets and to settle into their own unique voices and personalities to create an authentic connection between instructor and rider. “When we feel safe,” she explains, “anything is possible; and when there is something for everyone, inclusivity shines and everyone can feel welcome and seen.”
If you’ve taken classes with Carolyn, you probably know which songs she listened to in middle school, which songs connect to her favorite Recess memories, and the song she danced to in the kitchen once with her son. At Recess, music is another way of connecting not only to ourselves, but to each other. Attend a few classes with some recurring characters, and you’ll start to learn things about those riding next to you based on what songs they get excited about, which songs they know all the words to, and which artists they’ve never heard of.
When Kendal Henline is creating a playlist, she’s thinking about something different each time. It might be songs that resonate with her that week, songs she knows certain riders will love, or an opportunity to find new music. “Playlisting is an expression of so many things,” Kendal says. “We get to bring people along on a journey.” Her favorite rides include a Camp Rock x High School Musical team teach with Kate and an evolution of 2000s music Saturday morning series. When she isn’t teaching her own classes, she loves being immersed in other instructors’ classes and freeing herself to interact with the music in a different way. “I love looking across to the other side bar and locking eyes with someone to scream sing a song or making a joke about how Sophie is killing us in an arm series when the person next to me has 8lb weights.” (And if you ride at Recess, you know exactly who she means!)
“Music is its own love language,” says instructor Kate Clark. “Every ride I create isn’t just a ride. It’s a letter, top to bottom, designed to make you feel something.”
Music is what led Sophie Kiluk to becoming a Recess instructor. When she’s making playlists, Sophie thinks about the kind of energy she wants to create in the room. She considers things like: do we need peaceful moments today? Crowd-pleasers? A “Recess classic?” Her aim is for riders to feel like they’re on a journey together. “Those days when the energy is magical and 100% of the room is present and celebrating each other,” she says, “those are my favorite rides.”
Each week, you can find both themed and unthemed rides. Some consistent favorites include:
Hip Hop Mondays with Sophie
Taylor Swift Cycle Club (all TSwift all the time) with Kate
(W)rapper Wednesdays with Samantha Ray and/or Dana
Throwback Thursdays with Bevin
Total Request Live with Carolyn
You can also expect fun exclusives like Hannah Montana’s 20th Anniversary, Millennial Mania, Paramore vs Evanescence, Dolly vs Cher, Gwen Stefani vs No Doubt, or The Good Witches (Florence and Stevie). You might also catch Samantha Ray dressed as Hamilton for a Broadway ride or Carolyn and Kate dressed as Britney and Pitbull respectively for “Pittney.”
“Playlists are art to us,” Bevin says. “They’re the story of where you are in your life at that exact moment. It’s choosing from masterpieces and stitching together snippets of time. If a song doesn’t move me the day of, it doesn’t make it on the playlist. I choose what I need because if I’m feeling something, there’s a good chance someone else is feeling it, too.”
Some classes are spin/yoga hybrids, like Dana Stephens’ Goddess Yoga and Kate’s Recess Out Loud (co-led with Zach Pomeroy), hosted the third and last Wednesday of each month respectively. Zach Pomeroy, host of QueerFlow Yoga at LemonTree Embodiment Studio, crafted his practice around affirming queer identity. As someone who’s long struggled with her sexual orientation and how she fits into binary spaces, Kate was not only moved by Zach’s practice, she was inspired to bring the same energy to Recess. At Recess Out Loud, you can expect 30 minutes of cycling led by Kate, featuring queer artists like Chappell Roan, Sam Smith, and Brandi Carlile, followed by 30 minutes of yoga led by Zach.
Pride Ride is Recess’s most highly anticipated rides of the year. Last year’s ride, co-hosted by Kate and Bevin, featured a playlist of queer artists and gay anthems—but most notably, drag queens performing during and after the ride!
“This ride isn’t just about fun and performance,” Kate says. “It’s about how we can bolster the local LGQBQIA+ community and make Recess stand out as a safe space.” Queens for Pride Ride 2025 included Tatianna Matthew, Rashmia Boish LaQueer, and Dollyboy. “As an openly queer woman myself,” Kate says, “Bevin deferred largely to me on music selection and allowed the ride to boost queer voices and share queer art in a way that went beyond the typical “it’s June so let’s play ‘Born This Way’ by Lady Gaga (which of course we DID also play).” At Pride Ride, Queens perform during the spin class and again in the parking lot after, where the community gathers to not only to celebrate Pride, but to remember that it began first as a protest. This year’s Pride Ride is scheduled for June 14.
Pride Ride 2025 // photos by Malcolm Little
Pride Rides aren’t the only time of year you might spot a Queen performing at Recess. Dollyboy is Wilmington’s go-to for Taylor Swift drag numbers. When Kate saw her perform as Taylor at Hi-Wire’s Pride Fest, she immediately knew Dollyboy was perfect for a Taylor Swift Cycle Club appearance.
The Taylor Swift Cycle Club started as a temporary series during October 2025 to celebrate the release of “Life of a Showgirl”—but the Swifties wanted more. Now a permanent spot on Tuesday nights at 6:30, Swifties can experience the Eras Tour every week, with playlists featuring music from every album. “The TSCC understood the assignment,” Kate says. “The space anchors this feeling of quintessential girlhood. It’s like dancing in the early 2000s to ‘Love Story’ in your bedroom, except this time your bedroom has a sound system and colorful lights.”
For the Recess team, this is what it comes down to: be present, be together (because together is better), and move. Choose what feels right for your body, and let the music guide your body, your mind, and your spirit. “It’s impossible to fully put to words the intrinsic connection and energetic shift that can occur when 45 bodies show up in quiet agreement to grow together,” says Carolyn.
Over five years, Carolyn has taught almost 300 theme rides. One of her favorites, she says, was Fall Girl Defrosting. “Layers were shed softly and lovingly from a deeper place than mere physicality,” Carolyn shares. “We buffed away at the raw and jagged edges of ourselves collectively until there was an unspoken reverence, within ourselves and for those who surrounded us.”
What truly sets Recess apart from any other spin studio you’ve ever been to is the warmth and openness from the team and their philosophy behind the why. It’s not about cardio or calories—it’s about the power of community and movement, about what happens when people come together with authenticity and vulnerability, about entering into a better version of yourself.
“I believe in the power of movement and community,” Bevin says. “I want you to have a space where there’s no comparison to yesterday or today and you can get in touch with that quiet, inner voice inside you. Music guides us. Music is how we reflect and uncover ourselves.”
